Firefox 4.0, the Next Major Version of Firefox

It’s quasi-official

Firefox

According to Mozilla’s current plans, the next major release of its open source browser will be labeled Firefox 4.0.While the moniker is bound not to be a real surprise for quite a consistent number of Mozilla watchers, the fact of the matter is that the browser vendor has not officially announced that Firefox 4.0 would be the successor of Firefox 3.6. At one point, Mozilla was planning two upgrades to Firefox 3.5, namely versions 3.6 and 3.7. Firefox 3.6 was delivered earlier this year, and it looks like Firefox 4.0 will be next.

”As many have heard, I've been working with various stakeholders in order to put together a product plan for the next version of Firefox, which is looking like it will be called Firefox 4. I'm happy to say that it's at a point where I'd like to present it to the community in order to set expectations and focus, as well as in order to gather more feedback and thoughts,” revealed Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox.

Beltzner will be presenting the product plans for the next major iteration of Firefox on May 10th at 12:00pm PT on Air Mozilla. “The presentation will be recorded and available for anyone to watch afterwards. During the presentation I will have people watching #airmozilla on IRC in case people wish to ask questions - please do not hesitate to ask even despite the broadcast delay; I won't mind going backwards. The goal of the presentation it to help everyone understand the product vision for the next version of Firefox, and what projects are underway to realize it. I hope you can make it,” he stated.

It was Beltzner who hinted earlier this year that Firefox 3.7 would be dropped, and that the open source browser would jump straight to version 4.0. It looks like v3.7 and v4.0 were melted into each other, with only Firefox 4.0 surviving. Mozilla has been releasing a constant flow of Alpha development milestones for Firefox 3.7, including builds featuring visual elements from the Firefox 4.0 GUI (graphical user interface) overhaul.